On Robust Utility Maximization

We give explicit solutions for utility maximization of terminal wealth problem $u(X_T)$ in the presence of Knightian uncertainty in continuous time $[0,T]$ in a complete market. We assume there is uncertainty on both drift and volatility of the underlying stocks, which induce nonequivalent measures on canonical space of continuous paths $\O$. We take that the uncertainty set resides in compact sets that are time dependent. In this framework, we solve the robust optimization p...

This paper investigates the problem of maximizing expected terminal utility in a (generically incomplete) discrete-time financial market model with finite time horizon. In contrast to the standard setting, a possibly non-concave utility function $U$ is considered, with domain of definition $\mathbb{R}$. Simple conditions are presented which guarantee the existence of an optimal strategy for the problem. In particular, the asymptotic elasticity of $U$ plays a decisive role: ex...

We study the two-times differentiability of the value functions of the primal and dual optimization problems that appear in the setting of expected utility maximization in incomplete markets. We also study the differentiability of the solutions to these problems with respect to their initial values. We show that the key conditions for the results to hold true are that the relative risk aversion coefficient of the utility function is uniformly bounded away from zero and infini...

We consider an arbitrage-free, discrete time and frictionless market. We prove that an investor maximising the expected utility of her terminal wealth can always find an optimal investment strategy provided that her dissatisfaction of infinite losses is infinite and her utility function is non-decreasing, continuous and bounded above. The same result is shown for cumulative prospect theory preferences, under additional assumptions.

In this paper, we study the problem of expected utility maximization of an agent who, in addition to an initial capital, receives random endowments at maturity. Contrary to previous studies, we treat as the variables of the optimization problem not only the initial capital but also the number of units of the random endowments. We show that this approach leads to a dual problem, whose solution is always attained in the space of random variables. In particular, this technique d...

We study utility maximization problem for general utility functions using dynamic programming approach. We consider an incomplete financial market model, where the dynamics of asset prices are described by an $R^d$-valued continuous semimartingale. Under some regularity assumptions we derive backward stochastic partial differential equation (BSPDE) related directly to the primal problem and show that the strategy is optimal if and only if the corresponding wealth process sati...

In this paper we study a representation problem first considered in a simpler version by Bank and El Karoui [2004]. A key ingredient to this problem is a random measure $\mu$ on the time axis which in the present paper is allowed to have atoms. Such atoms turn out to not only pose serious technical challenges in the proof of the representation theorem, but actually have significant meaning in its applications, for instance, in irreversible investment problems. These applicati...

In this paper we show that the weak representation property of a semimartingale $X$ with respect to a filtration $\mathbb{F}$ is preserved in the progressive enlargement $\mathbb{G}$ by a random time $\tau$ avoiding $\mathbb{F}$-stopping times and such that $\mathbb{F}$ is immersed in $\mathbb{G}$. As an application of this, we can solve an exponential utility maximization problem in the enlarged filtration $\mathbb{G}$ following the dynamical approach, based on suitable BSDE...

We provide an extension of the explicit solution of a mixed optimal stopping-optimal stochastic control problem introduced by Henderson and Hobson. The problem examines wether the optimal investment problem on a local martingale financial market is affected by the optimal liquidation of an independent indivisible asset. The indivisible asset process is defined by a homogeneous scalar stochastic differential equation, and the investor's preferences are defined by a general exp...

We consider the optimal stopping problem $v^{(\eps)}:=\sup_{\tau\in\mathcal{T}_{0,T}}\mathbb{E}B_{(\tau-\eps)^+}$ posed by Shiryaev at the International Conference on Advanced Stochastic Optimization Problems organized by the Steklov Institute of Mathematics in September 2012. Here $T>0$ is a fixed time horizon, $(B_t)_{0\leq t\leq T}$ is the Brownian motion, $\eps\in[0,T]$ is a constant, and $\mathcal{T}_{\eps,T}$ is the set of stopping times taking values in $[\eps,T]$. The...